I’m Throwing A Party with Sign-Up Sheets
Announcing Oakland’s Club Directory & Activity Fair
I hated San Francisco for the first two months I lived there. I was renting an overpriced room in the Mission, paying a fortune for a parking space, and I had to commute to a strip mall in Mountain View every day. What made me turn the corner? One, I crashed Tess’s birthday party she advertised on Facebook (we now co-own a home). And two, I started playing for San Francisco Lacrosse Club a couple weeks later.
I probably filled out the interest form at least four times until Jonathan Yip invited me to play with San Francisco Lacrosse Club (SFLC) back in March 2015. And I remember making a beeline to the Club Lacrosse table at the WashU Activity Fair back in 2001. I’m 99% sure I did the same thing when I was a freshman in high school in 1997. Yes, I’ve been obsessed with the sport since middle school, but also because the field was always a place I found belonging.
Same story after grad school: I couldn’t keep playing for Harvard’s Club Team, so I pounded the pavement to find Team Crystal Head Vodka1. And when I had put on a little too much weight2 after being inactive for two years after graduating college, I found the DC Bullets, who still have the best kits of any lacrosse team I’ve played for (WaPo agrees).
Looking back, I realize every time I’ve moved cities, I’ve searched for belonging the same way: through clubs, teams, and community. Now I want to make that easier for others in Oakland through JOINERS3.
But it wasn’t easy to find these teams in each city—links were dead, contacts were out of date, and in the Bay Area, there wasn’t even a central league page back then. How I wish there had been a directory or offering to help me envision and map my life like the US Chamber of Connection’s Seattle Welcome Days: a citywide welcome mat for newcomers to find their people and design their civic, social, religious, and other relationships to a place.
It wasn’t always this hard. Before the internet, cities published directories not just to list businesses and residents, but to map civic life. In 1913, A.V. Williams noted as much in The Development And Growth Of City Directories:
We find that in countries where the greatest progress and advancement along general lines has been made , the city directory has flourished and kept pace with the times.
Before the advent of the phone book in the 1970s, city directories were needed to find businesses, residents, and services. It seems my home state was the first to publish a city directory as part of a Baltimore newspaper in 17524. As standalone directories became more prevalent, a Polk’s5 Directory became omnipresent in cities across the country, including Oakland. And currently, these city directories are invaluable records for genealogists and historians piecing together lives of yore.
They weren’t just phone books. They were maps of civic life. Resources where newcomers could find a square dance club, a lodge, or a team. They also included info about local government, civic clubs, and associations.
In their film follow up to Bowling Alone, JOIN or DIE—both of which track the threat to democracy caused by the continuing decline of civic participation in the US—Robert Putnam and Pete Davis describe how cities previously advertised their civic assocations—on “Welcome to…” signs and in their city directories.
Though the former welcome signs still exist if you’ve been on a roadtrip recently, the latter do not. Sure, the internet and our phones offer limitless information, but wouldn’t it be easier if there were a single destination? Have you really been satisfied with your Meetup6 or Facebook Group experience?
The city directory can be a valuable reference resource, but how can people know what these spaces and communities look and feel like? I recall the WashU activities fair’s festival-like atmosphere. There were students staffing tables all day, and demonstrations of the different activities, and even performances.
I know that this experience mostly occurs at colleges and universities, but why can’t we make it accessible for entire communities? Minneapolis has the Community Connections Conference. Oakland even held the Activism and Advocacy Resource Fair back in 2017 following Donald Trump’s first inauguration.
So JOINERS is bringing it back. We’re hosting an activity fair and publishing a club directory. Sometime in fall 2025. Lots is still TBD, but you 100% get involved. In fact, I’m counting on it.
📝 Submit a club
You can sign up. Are you in a club? Do you lead a club? Submit its information! Heck, even if you want to start a new club, fill that out!
📣 Spread the word
Do you know a(nother) joiner? Send them this form (or forward them my Substack 😘). This only works if the word is shared far and wide. And I’m going to translate the form at some point, but let me know if you can help out with that!
🫱🏿🫲🏾 Partner or cohost
I also need partners and cohosts! Do you work at an Oakland-based organization that might want to cohost this with me? Or do you know folks at Parks & Rec, the library, or city hall? Do you want to co-plan this with me…and maybe take on some of the tasks? Or do you just want to be a sounding board to make sure I’m thinking of all the things? Let me know!
💸 Sponsor or donate
Are you one of my former philanthropy colleagues who might want to donate to this cause or sponsor7 it? We’ll have costs and have put together a prelim budget for both projects that I’d be happy to share if anyone is interested!
This may seem small, but it’s a start. And we need more starts. More places to connect in person and remind each other we belong. And more ways to show each other that we are more similar than we are different. So let’s get this city bridging its differences again and throw a party with sign up sheets.
Upcoming Events
June 17, 6:30pm. A Conversation About Adolescence (Zoom). Come ready to share ideas and engage in an open conversation about the powerful themes raised in Netflix's Adolescence! Cohosted by Reichi Lee (My Digital Tat2) & Deepti Doshi. (New_ Public). RSVP at Eventbrite.
July 12, 11am. Civic Love Block Party. Civic Love is a celebration of community, culture, music, art, and block partying in The Town. Featuring Jazz Mafia and OSA’s Prospect Band. (Also I’ll be tabling). RSVP on Partiful.
June 14, 4pm. this is my body: a storytelling showcase. This is my body is a powerful storytelling experience designed for women of color to reclaim their narratives, amplify their voices, and own their truths. Hosted by Novalia Collective. Tickets at Eventbrite.
June 27, 5pm. revival rounds #18: death over drafts. Death Doula Ka Yun Cheng, who will prompt a playful die-alogue that may lead to dialogue on how we approach death. RSVP on Partiful.
July 25, 6pm. JOINERS x Girls Garage: Civic Makers Happy Hour. We’re mixing happy hour with hands-on making. Come learn more about Girls Garage with community-minded folks, enjoy some light snacks and drinks, and print your own civic-themed t-shirt using heat press tools in Girls Garage’s amazing space. RSVP on Partiful.
September 30, 12pm. A Conversation About Adolescence (Zoom). Come ready to share ideas and engage in an open conversation about the powerful themes raised in Netflix's Adolescence! Cohosted by Reichi Lee (My Digital Tat2) & Deepti Doshi. RSVP at Eventbrite.
For some reason Dan Aykroyd was a founder? And maybe beat every other celebrity to the booze game.
I’m probably back to this form given the rapid deterioration of my body that’s made me sedentary in recent years.
For new readers (👋🏿), JOINERS is the social infrastructure project I’m launching. It’s civic and social infrastructure that provides physical scaffolding and support for youth- and adult-led clubs and organizations.
Helpful info from Geneva, NY
Fun fact: R.L. Polk & Company eventually entered the automotive industry as a data publishing behemoth, and came to own Carfax by 1999.
Meetup is catching strays here, but they deserve a huge shoutout because they were founded in response to Bowling Alone’s publication!
We are more than 60 days out, so you know who you are if you can still submit this event for sponsorship.